If 2005 was "the year of HD", as Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced at Macworld Expo San Francisco in January, then 2007 could well be received as "the year beyond HD". Apple plans to rollout a number of new high-end video editing solutions.

Sources report that Apple is finishing up development on a new version of its Final Cut Studio suite, including Final Cut Pro 6, and will likely deliver the next-generation version of its professional video editing software when the National Association of Broadcasters kicks off the annual NAB trade show in April.

Apple originally planned to ship Final Cut Pro 6 at NAB last year but ran into delays when the company was forced to move members from that software's development to the Aperture development team. Aperture, Apple's professional photo editing and management software, received a lukewarm reception with its 1.0 release and required substantial rewriting of the code to deliver better performance and features, improvements that were delivered in September 2006 with the release of Aperture 1.5. Most of the reassigned developers returned to Final Cut Pro duties following that software release, sources say.

Most notable among the additions planned for Final Cut Pro 6 will be the release of a new, hardware-accelerated version of the software dubbed Final Cut Extreme. Sources say Extreme is slated to ship later this year, likely in the summer, with a price range of $10,000 to $30,000, depending on configuration. With such a solution, Apple is gearing up to take on main rival Avid in the realm of high-end video editing systems.

Working in tandem with Apple's Mac Pro system, Final Cut Extreme will enable customers to work with uncompressed 4K and 2540p video, suitable for working with Red Digital Cinema's Red camera, which is also expected to be delivered at NAB, as well as the Panavision Genesis, Dalso Origin, Thompson Viper, Sony Cinealta, Phantom HD, and Arri D20 cameras.

In addition, the hardware acceleration is said to support new versions of Apple's Motion software, as well as future applications, including the next-generation version of Shake, Apple's digital composition solution, currently on track for delivery in 2008.

Sources also say that Final Cut Pro 6 will require a 64-bit processorPowerPC G5 or Intel Core 2 Duo or Xeonand that it will require Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, as the software will make extensive use of Leopard's new Core Animation technology. Those high-end requirements will also allow the new Final Cut Studio to support resolution independence, a new feature of Leopard that allows an application's interface to scale with the display's resolution, ideal for users working with high resolution displays with a high number of pixels packed into each square inch.

To that extent, it is also rumored that Apple will deliver new high-end displays around NAB as well, including at least one display that will exceed the specifications of Apple's current top-of-the-line 30-inch Cinema Display, including possible support for 4K+ resolutions. In addition, Apple is said to be considering bumping the display on the 17-inch MacBook Pro to a 1920x1080 resolution, allowing for native HD editing.

Meanwhile, Apple conceded Monday that its highly anticipated new Apple TV set-top media center will not be ready to ship until mid-March, a delay of roughly three weeks. When the company officially announced the Apple TV at Macworld Expo San Francisco in January, Apple said it was planning to ship the first units in February.

In early February, however, ThinkSecret sources reported Apple would be hard pressed to deliver the Apple TV on time. Specifically, sources disclosed that Apple's own retail stores were not even planning to roll out demo units in its stores until early March. Apple's retail stores are typically among the first to receive new Apple products.

Nonetheless, in the days following the original ThinkSecret report, Apple responded to media inquiries contesting any delays and maintained that the first units were still on track to ship in February. With month-long shipping windows, Apple traditionally delivers products towards the end of that month.

In an email sent Monday to customers who pre-ordered the Apple TV, the company admitted "wrapping up Apple TV is taking a few weeks longer than we projected, and we now expect to begin shipments in mid-March, not in February as originally anticipated." Orders have been re-scheduled to ship around March 20, and retail stores will not set up their displays until then.

Apple is planning a big push around the Apple TV, a high margin product that analysts say could provide as much as $500 million in additional revenue in 2007 and as much a $1 billion in 2008. Apple's retail stores will sacrifice floor space for its Macs in order to accommodate the Apple TV demonstrations. Most stores will have three Apple TV's on display, each connected to a 32-inch LCD TV, with a larger 42-inch LCD set up in the store's window, sources say.

Nick DePlume and the ThinkSecret staff cover Apple, the Macintosh, and related software with a mixture of news and other inside information. Check them out at http://www.thinksecret.com.